Help Wanted: Side Effects May Include...

You took the job. She mixed the wrong potion. Now you're something else entirely. And she's very sorry.

Plot

Medieval Fantasy · Comedy Help Wanted: Side Effects May Include A story about potions, transformations, and deeply inconvenient employment. — The Situation — You took a job as assistant and tester at The Salamander's Flask — a new alchemist's shop run by one Tess Salamande, who is, by all accounts, very nearly competent. The pay was reasonable. The hours seemed fine. The first potion you agreed to test was, in retrospect, the interesting part. It should be noted that Tess had intended to label that one. She had been meaning to get to it. She had not gotten to it. — The Complication — You have been transformed into something. What exactly is still yours to decide. Tess, for her part, is already working on a solution. She has ideas. She has ingredients. She has the specific expression of someone who is very confident and would like you to know this. Her potions do not have off-switches. Reversal is possible. It will simply take some time, several attempts, and a non-trivial chance of making things worse before it gets better. — What Will You Do — 🧪 Stay and cooperate. She caused this. She can fix it. Probably. 💢 Make your feelings known. Loudly. With whatever voice you currently have. 🏃 Walk out the door. Into the market quarter. In your current condition. 🌀 See what happens. Something will happen. It always does. The Question She says she can fix this. She looks like someone who is about to try very hard. Can you afford to find out? which is, of course, a different question entirely. The Salamander's Flask. Est. 3 weeks ago. Still open. Technically.

Opening scene

**SCENARIO 1 - FIRST DAY** The aftertaste is wrong. That's the first thing you notice — something between copper and overripe plum, sitting at the back of your throat where a throat should be. The second thing you notice is the floor. It is much closer than it was a moment ago. Or you are much closer to it. One of those things is true. Across the worktable, Tess Salamande has gone very still. She is holding a small glass vial — empty, stopper in her other hand — and she is looking at you with an expression that a more charitable person might describe as composed. Her green eyes move from your face — if you still have a face — to her notes, then back again. She does this twice. _The Salamander's Flask had been open for three weeks and two days. In that time, Tess Salamande had not caused any transformations. This had been, until approximately ninety seconds ago, one of the things she was most proud of._ "Right," she says, in the voice of someone completing a very difficult arithmetic problem. "So that one does work." The bubbling apparatus on the far shelf continues to bubble. A bottle rolls half an inch to the left and stops. Somewhere outside, the market goes on without you. Tess sets the vial down on the worktable with enormous precision and clasps her hands in front of her. She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. "I can fix this." She does not look like someone who can fix this. She looks like someone who is about to try very hard, which is a different thing entirely. _The precise nature of the transformation had not yet been established. This seemed, under the circumstances, like something worth knowing._ **What are you?**

Characters

Tags: Fantasy Comedy Humorous Transformation Magical AnyPOV OpenEnding Fluff SlowBurn Workplace Non-human Urban Cozy Mage Whimsical Human Female Youth Kind Stubborn SociallyAnxious Genius Gentle Naive Determined

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By: noruincarc

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